ONE OF US. ONE OF US.

theycallmebeth informs me that the artist responsible for the sculpture in my new default icon is William McElcheran, a Hamilton native. He does a lot of public art, usually bronze sculptures or facades featuring fat men in hats.


I am delighted by this one, though, which I feel is a visionary glimpse at the world of tomorrow, after I have raised my clone army.

Five Subjects Meme

leonard_arlotte gave me five topics to write about. If you want five topics, just ask!

Canada
Canada! The True North, Strong and Free! This is where I was born, and where I live. According to statistics collected by the United Nations, Canada had the world’s best “Human Development Index” for the years 1994 to 2000. It has ranked in the top 3 or 4 for a long time, consistently, usually in photo finish with Iceland and Norway, and sometimes Japan. This means, in essence, that SCIENCE proves Canada is a really good place to be. I like it here. It’s pretty quiet, and there’s a lot of scenery. We’re all raving socialists, except for people in Alberta, who are sort of like honorary Americans because they wear cowboy hats unironically. The Queen is on all the money.

Muncie
Muncie served as the statistically typical American city in a number of sociological studies throughout the 20th century, and seems to exert an influence on pop culture far beyond what one might expect. I mean, it doesn’t have a funny name, like Kalamazoo, or Wallawalla. It’s a small city, without any particular natural or man made attractions. There are dozens of cities like it. Yet, Muncie keeps cropping up in media I like. It was the setting for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the hometown of Norville Barnes, and it’s where Knights of the Dinner Table live. One day, I will visit Muncie, and… I don’t know what. Stop for lunch, then drive through to Fort Wayne and visit the Chessex Factory?

Poutine
Poutine is very bad for you, but surprisingly tasty once you get past the initial shock of eating cheese curds and brown gravy over French fries. I first had it in high school, I think. It was popular enough to be a standard menu item at McDonalds and Burger King for a time by the late 90s. Now, however, I think the only fast food restaurants serving the stuff are Harvey’s (a Canadian chain) and New York Fries. Harvey’s makes the best fast food poutine, but the best stuff comes from greasy diners and places like the Poutinerie.

Paper Clips
The paper clip (which is to say, the familiar oval wire “gem” clip) was invented (but not patented) in the United States in the late 19th century. Dozens of superior or competing designs were invented between 1890 and 1930, but the Gem endured because there was no patent on it. Anyone could make it, and they were always available. There was actually a bit of a paper clip war in the early 20th century, as different manufacturers fought to gain market share and come up with killer features that would dethrone the ubiquitous Gem clip.

One would think such an obvious device would have come to the world earlier, as securing bundles of paper was actually a big concern for burgeoning bureaucracies and corporations from the time of the Industrial Revolution. Specialized ribbons were used, or string, or bent pins. In the 1830s, rubber bands were the big thing. The problem was, none of these devices was suitable for securing a few sheets of paper and keeping them flat. Various clip board arrangements existed, but there were not small enough to fit conveniently into a file drawer. However, the paper clip as we know it required cheap, high-quality steel, which was not available until the late 19th century. Without the blast furnace, there would be no paper clip.

There is actually a monument to the Gem paper clip in Norway. Paper clips were used by the Norwegian resistance in WWII, as a covert sign. They’d wear them on their clothes, or use them to indicate a safe house, etc. The idea being that the paper clip was invented by a Norwegian. However, this is false. While the Norwegian in question may well have invented a type of paper clip, it was not the Gem clip used by the resistance.

Darkus Thel
Darkus Thel is a small-print RPG that has been played in the Fort Wayne area since the mid 1970s. I discovered it when I attended Pentacon 2006, and also discovered a large and enthusiastic local fan base of players. The creator of the game has been running the same game continuously since the 70s, and has claimed it to be superior to Dungeons and Dragons. I have a copy of the game, and it strikes me as a sort of epic labor of love, and a kind of living fossil. It probably is better than D&D, circa 1978, but the writing and presentation and engine are all extremely idiosyncratic and dated. That said, it seems to be quite playable, and the game world is obviously highly detailed. I would love to play this game, someday.

More questions!

This time from slwatson:

1.) Favorite type of cloth.
I can honestly say that no one has asked me this question before. As such, I’ve never thought about it. I… I don’t know. Tweed is sort of cool and retro. Silk is fun to touch. Is leather cloth? It smells nice.

2.) Favorite color of carpeting.
These questions are highly controversial! Heh. Um… I’m not sure. I like those Turkish rug sorta things, with fancy designs. If left to my own devices, I’d probably carpet a room in some dark utilitarian color. I’ll say… blue?

3.) How fatherhood has changed your life.
I used to get a lot more sleep, yet at the same time I stayed up late a lot more. velvetpage and I used to play D&D till 1 AM. We used to randomly go to movies or out or dinner. That spontaneity was lost, but we have gained a lot. I’ve experienced emotional highs of a sort I’d never felt before. And children are delightful, when they are in their element. Yes, you don’t take a rambunctious toddler into a movie or to a lecture, but in their element, in their own place, they are absolutely a joy.

4.) Kids shows you secretly don't want to admit to liking.
Ha! To heck with that. I admit freely to liking almost all of them. I even like Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. I guess the most embarrassing one I like, though, would have to be In the Night Garden which is rather like a less trippy version of the Boobahs, narrated by Derek Jacobi. Claire really loved that show, and she has an animatronic “Iggle Piggle”, complete with blanket.

5.) Family history -- ie, where your family originated from, way back when.
My father was born in Utrecht, Holland, and his family lived there for a long time. Through his mother (my Oma) we have a connection with the Huguenots, French Protestants who fled to Holland in the late 1600s. Members of my family have claimed that we are descendants of Rembrandt, but I have no idea how reliable that claim is. My dad’s family came to Canada in 1957.

My mom is Canadian born, but her parents were both immigrants. Grandpa was born on the Channel Isle of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency. Grandma was born in Edinburgh. Their families immigrated to Canada after WWI.